A dictionary definition of the word “parable” tells us that it is a short, simple story that teaches or explains an idea, especially a moral or religious one.
“Doubt, a Parable” is not a simple story but it does attempt to teach us a variety of moral lessons. This play, with its tight writing and perilous ambiguity, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2005 and also the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play. Lakeside Little Theatre’s production capably brings these weighty ideas to us for consideration.
The play is set at a New York Catholic school in 1964. In the wake of the Catholic Church’s Vatican II reforms, the Church is struggling for relevance. Progressive and well-liked priest Father Brendan Flynn (Rob Stupple) takes to the pulpit to talk about the interplay between doubt and faith. We watch the affable priest give his sermon and then see him teaching basketball to eight-graders.
A contrast is Sister Aloysius (Deborah Kloegman), the conservative and stern principal of the school. She seems to take offense with Father Flynn’s modern attitudes—and she also suspects something worse. She lectures her enthusiastic eighth-grade teacher Sister James (Linda Goman) to be more cold with the children and to make her lessons less fun. She also asks her to keep vigilant, to keep alert, never specifying exactly what she is fishing to find. When Sister James tells her that the school’s only Black student returned to class with a strange and subdued manner after a meeting alone with Father Flynn, alarm bells sound for the older nun.
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